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D-backs moving on from fracas, pool incident

6/11/13: Benches clear for the second time after Ian Kennedy plunks Zack Greinke in the bottom of the seventh

By Steve Gilbert
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MLB.com |

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- They are the only two teams that have opened Spring Training, and they will meet each other in a regular-season opening series March 22-23 in Australia.

And, oh yeah, they were involved in a nasty fracas last year that left both teams feeling the other was in the wrong. The Dodgers also irritated the D-backs with the way they celebrated clinching the National League West title last year by jumping in the Chase Field pool.

So it's only natural that D-backs general manager Kevin Towers was asked for his thoughts about the status of his team's relationship with Dodgers.

"They're the defending NL West champs," Towers said. "The status is that we want to win the division. It's no different than the way we approached it when the Giants won the division. We talked a lot about it this offseason, even with some of our players. The way our players feel is last year is last year. We need to turn the page. It's not going to fuel us anymore to kind of bring up what happened. What we need to do is on the field. Less talk, just go out and perform and beat them head to head. If you're able to beat them head to head, you've kind of accomplished what you wanted to do vs. talking about what took place last year with the brawl or what happened in the pool."

At the time of the incident, the Dodgers were in last place, while the D-backs led the division. Not long after, L.A. went on a 42-8 run, and Arizona was never able to recover.

"A lot of it probably had to do with frustration," Towers said. "We led the division, I think, more days than they did last year. Maybe the way they went about things wasn't the way we probably would have gone about things, but hey, that's who they are and that's who we are. It's probably frustration that they took the division lead from us and never looked back. They went one way and we went the other."